SharePoint Intranets - the initial setup

Talking about setting up a SharePoint Intranet 

 - lots of interesting articles and techniques need to be brought together in one go to create a solution.

This article covers some hurdles and ideas plus also listing some links that are quite good.

The first hurdle/design technique we hit was sticky footers and headers.
Along with the previous developers taking out the quick launch and this not being put into the initial specs, we also found a way to create the ultimate master page.

Some Good Links
Intranet Components
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Why hide the Quick Launch in SharePoint 2010

Had a weird case of a developer hiding the quick launch recently.

Why on earth would you do this for a company Intranet?

This madness came about because a designer who had no knowledge of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Server from a functional viewpoint decided to do a design that omitted the most practical navigational component in a site!

Then upon reading a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Server Development and Branding book, it mentioned how you could hide this. The following page had another example where it was obvious this wasn't done. Just because you can do this, doesn't mean you should!

Have to now rip it completely out of the master, so it cam be added to pages on the sites as a web part.

Noting that this Intranet is due by the end of this month and the taxonomy question was only just raised at the end of last week.

Whether it's a web site or an intranet, a good designer will speak with someone knowledgeable about the functionality of the underlying content management system.

The irony is that most of the impracticable designs are mainly copies of other examples you can find on the intranet but they can cause so much grief when they do not fit the system.

###

Excel Reporting via SharePoint

There are many ways to get your excel reports out to your branches.

One way is to upload them from excel or use some .net or vba code to pump them out from Excel to your Extranet.
The other way is to use Reporting Services and save the report as excel (if using reporting services 2008).
There is a trick to make the tabs look okay though rather than saying sheet 1, sheet 2 etc.

It's funny though that once you start doing this, then you need to script out the creation of the Extranet to make it easy to set permissions and manage.

This is where many people get it wrong because of their lack of experience and knowledge of SharePoint and the end result is an unmanageable Extranet.

We even built an Excel application just for building an extranet.
One fills in all the details, sets up the site template and hey presto a simple script that rolls out an extranet with no pain!

Regards,

Tom Bizannes

Tuning SharePoint

Tuning SharePoint by first looking at SQL Server:

Run some queries and check this out showing the top 5 tables and indexes used:

table_name, index_name, user_seeks


Webs Webs_PK 116,483,799

AllDocs AllDocs_PK 78,993,246

Sites Sites_Id 71,948,246

UserInfo UserInfo_PK 33,327,126

AllLists AllLists_PK 30,029,967

So next step is to rebuild and change the fill factor.

Excel Services / SharePoint Reporting

Excel Services sounds great until you hit the limitations.

If you ain't got a cube behind your excel workbook then forget about it!

Or you need to do funky things like uploading your data with some fancy macros.....but enough said about that...

But how easy is it to set up a few cubes to link to your data....depends if you speak to someone like me or not! Will need to blog about that soon relative to simple data reporting as compared with fancy analysis....e.g. a customer list lookup!

We get most people using reporting services because it is easy to use if you have excel experience.
Plus things like scheduled reporting and dril through is soo nice.

As you can see there are many more questions raised than simple answers.
That said, the next version in SharePoint 2010 might be a little better. What will be better one hopes is the confusion about what you can do etc.

Performance Point and Moss 2007 install success after some head banging

Finally got around to installing Performanace Point on my Moss 2007 box.
And moss was broken!

It was to do with Performance Point using an older version of ajax. Had to update three web.config files and tweak a master page and all was well.

Now Performance Point is using the latest version of Ajax.net and Moss 2007 is back up and working.

Now to set up some nice dashbaords linked to my cubes....

The power of google

The Power of Google..

The Company I work MacroVIew - comes up no 1 when you type in SharePoint Document Management, but not when you type Document Management SharePoint.

This is kind of limiting, in that google should be more consistent...but hey..

It was funny. My boss asked me to get the web site at the top in google and depending on the order of the words, it was....

Other little key phrases were:
pdf sharepoint save - although think people would type saving pdf to sharepoint....
And Email Management SharePoint - even though people type saving messages to sharepoint

Cannot win the google battle all the time as the competitors struggle to knock us off....

MacroView WISDOM goes SharePoint

All the SharePoint Document management addins and the SharePoint addin camlets showing them in action are now on a Separate web site called MacroViewWISDOM.

This was done in SharePoint as the content management system.

Even the other professional suite of products can now be seen:
Unique Document Numbering

Indexed columns to make your very large lists and libraries run faster

This helps with getting over the 2,000 limit in a library but can see how it could be useful for lists with 500 plus items as well.....

* There are other tuning techniques that can speed up your sharepoint. Mainly database related.

You can set up indexed columns on a list or document library in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007...

Evry list item that has an indexed column will create a new row in the NameValuePair table.(The “NameValuePair_Latin1_General_CI_AS” table for the English Language version of SharePoint)
The table also needs to be updated whenever indexed columns change their value or when items are added or deleted. E.g. Having a list with 100,00 items and an index column for instance means that you also add 100,00 items to the NameValuePair table.
And - every time you update your list - NameValuePair need to be updated as well.

Tom Bizannes works for MacroView Business Technology who specialise in Solutions in Microsoft Office and SharePoint.
http://www.macroview.com.au

sql server reportng services 2008 windows 2008 and sharepoint can all live together

Finally had the time to suss this out.

First you need to know the tricks to get to the hidden sharepoint admin settings and then there's one little config setting that will stop nearly every attempt to get it to work regardless of whether you use SharePoint integrated mode or native mode.

All I can say, is alot of people would strangle whoever created the sql server 2008 reporting services install because this one setting is just ridiculous.

And to think I thought it was IIS7 that was causing the issue!

Was getting errors like:

The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel.

and rsInvalidDataSourceReference

Regards,

Tom Bizannes

SharePoint and Sql Server

Sydney, Australia

http://www.macroview.com.au

Don't use folder names to help find your documents

Here is a gotcha...

If you use folder names in a SharePoint site, the search can find hte folder, but it ignores the folder name for bringing back documents.

So if you had a folder called BHP in a site called Clients and a document in there called Proposal.doc.

Then you searched for BHP you would get a link to the folder, but not one to the document.

Makes sense eh..

You really need to have a column for the client name if you would like to type in bhp and get all the doucments back.

Funny how most people miss this....until they think about the search results and the chaos if folder names were used to bring back documents.

SharePoint User Group 16th September 2008

Adam Cogan showed us what ssw did to WorleyParsons to build the largest public facing SharePoint website in the world!
Very nice css…will need to figure out the css in the groovy menu!

http://www.worleyparsons.com

He said the whole team would have been in Hawaii enjoying the good life if the profits hadn’t been wiped out by the deployment time.
They had eight .net guys for nine weeks working around the clock to do this!

You have to laugh knowing how hard SharePoint is, and then hear a story like Adam’s to see how a smartass like him thought it would be a piece of cake because he didn’t know any better!

They re-engineered web parts disabling many of the features in the content editor one so that users could only pick styles they had made.
They wrote their own navigation extension using divs not tables, because the out of the box one has tables inside tables everywhere and divs are more elegant, more powerful and load faster!

They removed references to the name active x control from loading….so users wouldn’t get active x warnings.

When one copies from word into a content editor is is really screwy so they got their users to copy to notepad first.
One audience member suggested PureText to solve this.

They used jquery so that it would be cross browser compliant…need to look into this…..

They ending up with 7 layout pages and one master…
The javascript was placed in the layout pages.

Three web parts were re-engineered and made available for use – the Data View Web Part, Content Editor and Content Query Web Part.

Funny enough they learnt most things the hard way.
When he talked about problems they tried to solve, some of the other guys had other solutions,
e.g using rss output and input to feed information into the data view web part etc.
Or copying virtuals when loaded with SharePoint and SQL caused issues as he could sysprep them, so as to not cause network issues.
Funny enough you can do so with SharePoint and Sql 2008 I think as they other guys mentioned it works with only SharePoint and I found out that sql 2008 works fine when you rename the pc, so still need to test this.
He also had debugging issues.
Yes it is hard if you don’t know how and one person pointed out you can debug in vs2008 which I’ve seen done as well.
Also he was advised to look at SharePoint logging Spy on codeplex…

Also, they wanted a test, staging and production server and to have a script that rolled out changes.
Not easy.
They did 90% with a script and the rest by hand….
One guy mentioned echo for the SharePoint designer changes to be rolled out!

Also for speed they were looking at the as1000 device from strange loop as this speeds up web sites running .net…So probably more applicable to a public site where everyone is the one user – anonymous.

They also overrode the render method via the .browser file to strip out stuff for performance.

What was funny was that he didn’t know that one could have multiple site collections when this was asked…

They are still learning…..

Regards,
Tom Bizannes
Solutions in Office and SharePoint

Reporting Services and SharePoint Integration on Windows 2008 server

Had fun trying this on a windows 2008 box.
Note this also applies for setting up on a vista box....
Everything worked after hitting each bit a few times!
So important to get permissions set, root site collections set properly and IIS7 configured right before installing anything.

So the steps to install in order are:
Set up IIS7 with all the correct settings:

Common HTTP Features:
Static Content
Default Document
HTTP Redirection
Directory Browsing

Application Development:
ASP.Net
ISAPI Extension
ISAPI Filters

Security:
Windows Authentication

Tools:
IIS Metabase Management
IIS 6 WMI Management

Then make sure you set tcp and named pipes in the sql server surface area configuration tool for the remote connections.

Then install service 2 for sql server and the service pack for the service pack if it isn't up to version 9.0.3054

Then run the sharepoint reporting services msi file that integrates them noting this doesn't run on a windows 208 server unless you install a reg hack to run as admin or turn off the uac.

Then you need to go into the reporting services configuration tool to configure and that is where many get mixed up.
Reporting Services needs to use the same pool as sharepoint to integrate.

Everything finally fell into place except the reporting services configuration settings didn't show in the sharepoint admin application page.
Had to go to the _layouts pages instead.

When deploying your reports, the pc with report designer should also be service packed and then you get an extra option regarding sharepoint in your deployment options wording for your target folders etc.

http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ReportServerSiteSettings.aspx
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ManageTrustedAccounts.aspx
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ReportServerSiteSettings.aspx?Settings=RS

Regards,Tom Bizannes
Sydney, Australia
Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access Consulting

Googling Sharepoint Document Management

The fine art of getting a good ranking in Google can be very difficult.
Some weeks you are one the first page, then some new comers come in a beat you.

The company I work for, www.macroview.com.au is in the first page in Google in australia for "sharepoint document management" but in google.com we are sometimes in the first page and currently one of our partners is beating us, which is okay as this leads back to us.

Are the msdn blogs unbeatable?

Let's see how we go next week.

Tom Bizannes
http://www.macroview.com.au
Sharepoint Document Management

Installing SQL 2005 on Vista or Windows 2008:

There have been some installations with sql 2005 without sql 2005 reporting services due to not adding some components in windows 2008 or vista.

Installing SQL 2005 on Vista or Windows 2008:

And any installs on Windows 2008 Server or Vista PCs won’t install reporting services 2005 unless you make sure you have added all the required internet components, not just IIS7.

You need IIS 6 compatibility, plus a lot of other components so read this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934164

You need to run the install as admin.

Install SQL server 2005 then the Sql Server 2005 sp2 and then the vista provisioning tool and Visual Studio sp1.

** All fun but easier than the alternative to uninstalling and then do the steps above and then re-attaching all databases….just because an install missed one step.

Performance Point demo at .Net User Group Wednesday 19th September 2007

The turnout was smaller than usual!

Maybe the topic was more suited to the SQL Server user group!

First the news then the demo on Performance Point which will mean more business for companies who write cubes!

Office 2003 service pack 3 is out!

Office DevCon is coming at Microsoft over the weekend of 3 and 4th of November.
Bit like a code camp

Adam couldn’t stop talking about facebook and how much time he spends on it.
They even track how long staff use facebook as he is worried they might get as addicted as he is.
Simple things like seeing who has the fastest broadband connectivity or who has travelled the most etc…..

Cool sites were mentioned like trailfire.com where you can make a trail of your searching along with comments.
Useful? An example was looking up info on css and seeing the trail to sites with good info.
One could also use this to make a trail of places you are going to see…Good for travellers?

There’s a free High Performance Computing event this Friday at the MLC Centre.
This is by Frank Chism, world expert in high performance computing, discuss the future of cluster server technology
Frank admits to "over 40 years in HPC" and is "not looking to leave any time soon because I couldn't afford the cool toys I get to play with if I have to buy them myself."

Andrew Coates from Microsoft also talked about the OpenXML standard going to ISO…
There are some links regarding this and what was funny was how they even held events in New Zealand to explain this in more detail but the Kiwis rejected the proposal and we discussed is that because they are so anti-american?
The OpenXML standard apparently is more flexible than ODF and standardises even the older Microsoft office formats.
For more information goto:
openxmlcommunity.org/
openxmldeveloper.org/

Those who follow second life will like the inline protest of ibm staff against the 50 virtual offices that ibm runs as the profit has gone up but their bonuses have gone down!
workers-shape-up-for-big-blue-with-ibm

techcrunch.com/ - IT news – has rss feeds….

iScrybe for online calenders was mentioned as worth taking a look

They explained that SSW workers only do things if they get an email…talk about an inbox nightmare!
They didn’t want to use outlook as it was a problem with people coming and going…..
So they asked a business person to come up with a way to email monthly/quarterly tasks to staff and Google Calendar got a good wrap as it allows sending to many and can be shared easily.
You can even write code to talk with Google Calendar.

What I found perplexing was they mentioned SharePoint but then dished that as not be easy to set up re-occurring tasks!
From my view point their requirement is a little crude as one likes to know if a task has been completed and this didn’t seem to be their business requirement!

Performance Point:
There are three different parts to this.
M A P
M – Monitor / KPIs – based on Business ScoreCard Manager…
A – Analyse – They bought pro-clarity and what a Kool tool! ….This alone is worth it!
P – Planning (Planning/ Forecasting/Budgeting etc) from BizSharp – have yet to see anything about this but the business users like this part!

The main competitors are: Business Objects / Cognos and Hyperion.
At about 20K USD and $200USD per user, one of the guys from CBA where they use this said that was a good price.
Business Objects drill through isn’t as good…
Cognos is used by many in a similar way that reporting services is used….

There are guys at Microsoft who only deal in one of these three areas..and Adam only walked us through a canned demo of the first two.

So this is the new Hyperion Killer – Hyperion is a great tool, Ajaz enabled and using Bindows.net which is a very cool bit of Ajax technology that has been around for a few years.

Performance Point should lift the demand for SQL Server cubes being built although it can query normal odbc sources….
It works with SharePoint and was annoyed at Adam’s comment that you need Moss when it states either wss3 or moss!
It even states Office 2003 in the requirements…
This will be released soon so we should see the final specifications then.

The target market is decision makers and Ceos and Operational Managers will go gaga over this!

Regards,
Tom Bizannes
Sydney, Australia

Rollup all your tasks in SharePoint with Reporting Services!

Rollup all your tasks in SharePoint with Reporting Services!

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting services allows on to report on xml sources, which means one can report on SharePoint lists. So by creating reports based on your SharePoint lists with Report designer, you can now quickly view and drill through to important tasks or other items. The one issue in the past has been making the report designer SharePoint aware so that one can report on only tasks in your current site or those below. MacroView has now created a SharePoint aware web part that knows what site you are at so that your reports can take this site parameter and filter the information as required. One application of this is a rollup report showing all tasks in all sites for which you are assigned. You can then drill through and edit you tasks easily even though you might have many projects for which there are separate sites and tasks.

Regards,
Tom Bizannes
SharePoint Consultant
http://www.macroview.com.au

SharePoint Conference reflections

A lot of people at the SharePoint conference told us they found it difficult to determine what they could do in plain vanilla WSS3 versus MOSS.

So see the links below and please add your comments or links where appropriate etc…..

Apart from MySite and person lookups and searching relevance what are the differences and more importantly how can they be enhanced in WSS by MacroView or with a SharePoint add-on?

Seems WSS has basic workflow and alerts but MOSS allows customised emails for these alerts. Is that correct?
What are the real differences in Workflow if any?
Does this mean MacroView can add value here with some coding?

Also seems like the Content management difference is more to do with adding some steps for approval which isn’t in WSS?
Doesn’t look like a business user can add content in a WYSIWYG way unless they have MOSS?
Aren’t there third party .Net addons or Web Parts that allow this?

The Email content as records is a MOSS thing so WISDOM Message fills the gaps and then some in this area!

Slide Libraries are only a MOSS thing, unless you get WISDOM SlideBank!

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101758691033.aspx

http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2006/10/18/4910.aspx

http://dotnetaddict.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/moss_vs_wss.htm

http://www.frontpages-web-hosting.net/sharepoint-server-hosting/compare-wss-moss.asp

Tom Bizannes
http://www.macroview.com.au

Australian Firm wins Microsoft Innovative Search Competition!

MacroView has been judged the worldwide winner of the Innovative Search Solutions competition.
Microsoft conducted that competition to showcase the business potential of the Search facilities in SharePoint Server 2007.

Click here to see an example:

Here is the Microsoft announcement:

“Congratulations to MacroView Business Technology, headquartered in Australia – winner of the Quickstart for Microsoft Search Innovative Solution Contest! Finalists, representing a global field, included IT Consult headquartered in Italy and Workshare headquartered in the U.S.
The contest highlighted how Quickstart Partners have developed solutions that add business value, increase employee productivity and streamline business processes using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search. Numerous entries were received from Quickstart Partners around the world. Finalists and award winner were selected by a panel of Microsoft judges based on excellence and innovation in customer solution delivery and service. “

Tom Bizannes
SharePoint Consultant
MacroView Business Technology
Solutions in SharePoint and Office
http://www.macroview.com.au

SharePoint User Group Meeting Tuesday 17th July 2007

See my brief commentary and my notes at the bottom.
Please feel free to comment!
*******************
Anthony Woodward from Unique World talked about Compliance and some of the items they were working on with Microsoft.
He made it seem like they were partnering up with Microsoft to Launch a framework for Compliance/Records management in the next few months!

He mentioned a whole list of records management standards etc.

CLERP / HIPAA/DIRKS/VERS/Archives ACT.

They are working on a VERS Compliant structure as this can be certified before a client uses it.
VERS is a Victorian standard…
Whilst there are a number of specifications in the VERS compliance, MOSS is 90% compliant with specification 1, 75% with specification 2….etc So there isn't too much to add to make it compliant in some areas.

What all this is trying to do is to track what happens with a document. E.g. Who read it, printed it, when they read it, who edited it, and when it was edited…..

The Microsoft Records Management Team seem to focus on infopath as being the key to records management.

What was interesting was the mention of Barcoding in MOSS. This can be used to track documents.
Did a Google search and came up with the blog below!
What’s interesting is this blog talks about Label policies and Barcode Policies!
WISDOM Message already has the ability to set it’s own “Label Policy” similar to this!
http://blogs.msdn.com/recman/archive/2006/08/10/694087.aspx

I later on went into SharePoint and set this up. You can define it by library once the policy has been created. And when printing a word document it asks if you want to add a barcode! And this barcode can be resized etc. Cool....

So all the buzz words floating around can make your head dizzy!
Information Policies, Mapped Content Types, Barcode Policies, Label Policies, Records Centre.....

Then as for the question about emails, they mentioned Microsoft Exchange Journaling – note you need Exchange 2007 for this. But this doesn’t do everything? Will need to investigate this a little more....
Then they also mentioned they resell Colligo for SharePoint and that it tracks the emails…But how? When I checked out their web site this wasn’t mentioned in the features lists! It would possibly be only a crude tracking, because once the email has been sent to someone, then what does it track? So need to investigate more.
They didn’t mentioned Email Vault, but an IT manager from a 1,000 person company said they were very seriously considering this product because you just have to be sure all your emails can be found. Note: That wouldn't track the email activity....

There is another product called Meridio which adds Records Management capability to SharePoint, but this takes the content out of SharePoint, even though it looks like it is in SharePoint.

******

So the questions is how can one implement Records Management completely?
Or is it only around infopath forms? Or maybe Word Documents with Barcodes?

What does this means for SharePoint? Do you set it so no-one can delete a document? Do you set archiving on all libraries? How do you track reads?
Sending links from SharePoint comes close, if one could track who read the doco…..?
Speaking with a colleague, he kind of reckoned that the information rights management might play a part, and this seems one possibility….
Also, should one provide the ability to add a journal to a document or email to say it was printed, mailed to someone etc? How far does one go to be compliant?
Considering one can track everything that occurs with a piece of paper, trying to do so electronically, faces similar issues.

Tom Bizannes
MacroView Business Technology
Solutions in SharePoint and Office
http://www.macroview.com.au

SharePoint USer Group Meeting Tuesday 20th February 2007

Missed out on the pizza as there was too much going on in town, what with Army helicopters flying around and the crowds visiting the QEII. And this brought traffic to a stop at 8pm when I was trying to get the bus home...

Breaking News! Apparently there will be a SharePoint Conference in Sydney from 14th to 16th May!

This was an interesting session showing a free (community) tool for doing some of the basics in SharePoint plus going over the search web parts.

This tool actually competes with some other products out there as it allows one to change field names and properties, and even push out lists across a SharePoint installation or delete lists and even sites.
One feature he loved was being able to hide a field on editing, which one can see on new.
The case he uses this for was for tasks assigned to someone so that the assignee couldn't be changed.

Only works in SharePoint V3/ Moss and it hasn't been that thoroughly tested.

Isai from Unique World in Canberra designed this and updates this tool based on feedback from users.

Go to http://www.codeplex.com/spstipsUtilityPack

Isai also stepped through the search in MOSS and how to change the look and feel without coding.
Well that is not all true. One needs to be able to do XSLT which he recommended doing by copying the code out of the web part into Visual Studio and editing it before pasting it back in.

There was also some comments about the limitation of searching where it doesn't search for the beginning of a word, unless it was the plural a natural extension. e.g. Word will find Words and wording. But wor will not find results with the word “word”.....

But...Ontolica is apparently releasing a free but user limited version of their wildcard search next week...

Also for cross site searches Isai recommend his mates at http://www.kwizcom.com/ along with some of their other SharePoint products....

Tom Bizannes
MacroView Business Technology
Solutions in SharePoint and Office
http://www.macroview.com.au

SharePoint 2007 - Better For Managing Outlook Messages?

Having heard that SharePoint 2007 provides some significant new functionality in the area of document management, many organizations are asking whether they can use SharePoint 2007 to manage their Microsoft Outlook messages.

Do the new document management features of SharePoint 2007 help with managing Outlook messages? Is the integration between Outlook and SharePoint 2007 better than with previous versions of SharePoint? Can SharePoint 2007 be the email message repository for my organization?

The short answer is that SharePoint 2007 is definitely better for managing Outlook messages than previous versions of SharePoint. This article describes how the out-of-the-box features of SharePoint 2007 can be used with Outlook messages and discusses how by using a smart SharePoint add-on called WISDOM Message in conjunction with SharePoint 2007 you can create really great email message management solutions.

Content Types and Meta-Data Columns

Content Types are a key new document management feature in SharePoint 2007. A Content Type is effectively a collection of meta-data columns, which can be defined at the Site Collection level and then used in multiple document libraries. This approach allows much tighter control over the meta-data that is captured and stored for documents as they are saved to SharePoint. At the same time it reduces the maintenance effort that was associated with having meta-data columns defined separately for each Site within previous versions of SharePoint. The advantages of better meta-data are obvious when you need to filter and search for particular files in the SharePoint repository. A meta-data column such as ‘Client Name’ makes it possible to search across a SharePoint environment for all documents and messages that relate to a particular Client.

Email-Enabling Your Document Libraries

SharePoint 2007 allows you to create an email address for each document library. You can then include that address in the ‘To’, ‘CC’ or ‘BCC’ of an Outlook message, and have that message sent directly to the document library where it will be stored.

The problem with this approach is that SharePoint does not prompt for any meta-data columns that might be present in the document library. This in turn means that messages stored into SharePoint in this way will not be found if you search your SharePoint repository on the basis of a meta-data column – e.g. to find all documents related to a particular Client.

A further problem is that any attachments are saved separately from the body of the message, which is saved in an .EML file whose name may not be unique.

Uploading Messages via Your Web Browser

If you browse to a SharePoint 2007 document library with Internet Explorer you can upload an email message to the library and SharePoint will prompt you for values of any meta-data columns that are present in that library. That makes for a better result when you are searching, but the key problem is that you first have to save your email message from Outlook to a file – e.g. on your Desktop or in your My Documents folder. If your message has attachments then you must remember to save the message in .MSG format (so that attachments are included with the body of the message) or save and upload those attachments separately.

It’s not surprising that most users strongly dislike this approach. They are already working in Outlook and much prefer to save messages directly from Outlook to SharePoint, without needing to take any special extra steps related to attachments.

Save Message to SharePoint Directly from Outlook

So why not save the message to SharePoint 2007 directly from Outlook? Word 2007, Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 all provide a ‘Share, Document Management Server’ capability that makes it relatively easy to save the current document, workbook or presentation to SharePoint 2007. SharePoint will prompt you to choose a Content Type that is valid for your selected document library and for values for the meta-data columns related to that Content Type.

Unfortunately this mechanism is not available in Outlook 2007.

As an Outlook user, to save a message to SharePoint, you must first choose a document library. You can do this via My Network Places, but if your SharePoint has more than a few sites, this is very clumsy. By default the Network Places have names of the form on , so while they might be unique, you cannot easily distinguish a library on one SharePoint site from a library of the same name on another SharePoint site. Not to mention that the list of Network Places is flat and long and can take a while to load. If you are technically minded it is often easier to type the URL of the server and site / sub-site and then choose the library from the list that is then displayed. However many end-users are not comfortable with that approach.

Having chosen the destination library you must remember to save in an appropriate format (see the discussion of .MSG format above). SharePoint will not prompt for any custom meta-data columns, even if you are using Outlook 2007. Moreover, if there are any required columns, SharePoint 2007 will leave the newly saved message file in a ‘Checked Out’ state. You need to go to the web browser and Check In each such file, one at a time.

SharePoint 2007 is Good but can be made Even Better

Out-of-the-box SharePoint 2007 is a good repository for documents and files, including email messages. It has stronger management of meta-data which combines well with its improved search capability. The new inbuilt workflow mechanism of SharePoint 2007 is also useful for managing an email message repository. However the integration of Outlook and SharePoint still falls short of what organizations need for a fully effective, easy-to use overall solution for managing their email messages.

Improving Outlook and SharePoint Integration with WISDOM

A popular third-party add-on for improving the integration of Outlook and SharePoint is called ‘WISDOM Message’ from a Microsoft Gold Partner called MacroView. MacroView sell and support their WISDOM software range around the world from their offices in Sydney, Australia.

Once WISDOM Message is installed you can drag and drop in Outlook to save email messages to your favorite document libraries and folders in SharePoint. You can even do this when your Outlook is Offline or if you are using Outlook Web Access. Next time Outlook is connected, WISDOM will prompt to complete the process of saving any messages in your ‘SharePoint Favorites’ folders.

WISDOM automatically saves messages in .MSG files, assigns unique names to those files and prompts for any custom meta-data columns present in the SharePoint document library where you save. It also Checks In the new files.

WISDOM displays a tree-view of your SharePoint environment – in much the same way that Windows Explorer displays your File Shares and their folders. The WISDOM tree-view shows all the SharePoint servers, sites, libraries and folders for which you have permission to access. You can click to expand or collapse nested sites and folders. WISDOM shows all the Views defined for each Document Library, and all the columns in each View.

WISDOM Message lets you define and use Favorites to quickly select a site or library. As you add new Favorites, WISDOM Message automatically creates corresponding ‘SharePoint Favorites’ folders in your Outlook environment.

As you click on a SharePoint document library or folder WISDOM shows all the message files that have already been saved there. You can sort and filter the File List to find a particular message and then simply click that message to open it in Outlook. The message opens exactly as it was saved, with any attachments intact.

Smart Prompting for Custom Meta-Data Columns

As it saves a message to SharePoint, WISDOM Message prompts you to choose a Content Type that is valid for your selected SharePoint 2007 document library. It then prompts you to choose or enter values for all the custom meta-data columns that are defined as belonging to the selected Content Type. This effectively is the same as Word 2007 or Excel 2007 prompting for meta-data, except that WISDOM makes it easier to configure cross-site lookups that are based on external data. WISDOM refers to cross-site lookups as Profile Variables and allows you to choose a value for Profile Variable column from a filtered drop-down list, which can be populated from a list on a central SharePoint site or from an existing database.

WISDOM will automatically use the attributes of the Outlook message to set values of custom columns such as To, From, SentOn, ReceivedTime, etc. As part of the WISDOM installation MacroView supplies document library templates that contain these special Outlook meta-data columns as part of an ‘Outlook Message’ Content Type.

Automatic Naming of Saved Messages

WISDOM also helps out with naming of the MSG files that it creates when saving an Outlook message. These file names can be automatically created based on a pattern chosen by your organization – e.g. --.MSG. The end result is that Outlook messages saved with WISDOM are displayed in SharePoint much as they would be in an Exchange Public Folder, InBox or Sent box.

“Outlook messages are a key part of the documentation trail for our projects, and it is essential that we store them so that their integrity is maintained. With WISDOM Message we can achieve just that – WISDOM makes SharePoint a viable replacement for Exchange Public Folders as an email message store.”
WISDOM Message client, Canada.

Saving Attached Files

Sometimes you don’t want to save a message to SharePoint – just the files that are attached to that message. A good example of this is when your smart copier sends you an email with a PDF attachment that contains the scanned image of a paper document. The ‘SharePoint, Save Attachments’ feature of WISDOM Message allows you to choose a destination library for some or all attached files from an intuitive tree-view of your SharePoint environment and then smart prompts for values for any custom meta-data columns in the selected library.
Retrieving Files from SharePoint as Attachments
Speaking of Attachments, anyone who has tried to retrieve a file from SharePoint to be used as an Attachment to a new Outlook message will appreciate the ‘SharePoint Attach’ button that WISDOM adds into your Outlook environment. You browse your available SharePoint environment and select a file using the intuitive WISDOM tree-view display. WISDOM provides the option of inserting a link to the selected file into the current Outlook message, rather than inserting a copy of the file into the message. Either way WISDOM dramatically simplifies the task, compared to out-of-the-box Microsoft Outlook.

Other Documents and Files

WISDOM does not only work in Microsoft Outlook. It also runs in other parts of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) and in Windows. WISDOM makes it easier to save Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents to SharePoint 2007 and to open these documents from SharePoint. WISDOM handles the upload to SharePoint 2007 of multiple files from your Desktop or any Windows Explorer folder. It also facilitates moving files from one SharePoint library to another and the deletion, renaming, opening or downloading of files already in SharePoint – all via an intuitive tree-view display and action menu similar to Windows Explorer.

WISDOM makes Microsoft SharePoint much more effective for managing and sharing all your documents, messages and files.

More Information

For more information on WISDOM Message and how it can enhance your management of Outlook messages visit http://www.macroview.com.au/.

The full article with a screen shot in pdf format.

WISDOM supports SharePoint environments with servers running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), Windows SharePoint Services v3 (v3), SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPPS 2003) and WSSv2.
This article is based on Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh.

Sydney SharePoint USer Group Meeting Tuesday 18th July 2006

Just over half a dozen turned up to the 12/13th month of these….

Ivan mentioned we had some good SharePoint add-ons referring to the WISDOM SharePoint products MacroView has.

Lars from Ontolica in Denmark presented Ontolica via Live Meeting and Skype.
After first trying to use skype over the room speakers, Ivan had to revert to some headphones plugged into his notebook.

The Ontolica search only needs an instance of Portal server installed and for WSS searching it uses Portal server engine to index the wss sites.

It is a Google like experience with a few extras!

It is Boolean by default so you don’t need to type in and between words, but can type in or and use nested logic….

The search scope item at the end of the search box is great and the power user method of being able to type filetype:doc etc like in Google to filter to a doc type or site etc was great.

The ability to change the look and feel was interesting as well as the extra web parts which make filtering a little cleverer and pleasant to use.
These web parts work out what items you can filter on and they help immensely in narrowing down the search items with a click or two.

The best bets web part is like Google ads and suggests what users should look at. If placed on the right hand side, it is so much like the Google ads…well say no more.

Their first release was in Sept 2004 and they have made many improvements since then.

It is a good product for those with portal server.

Ontolica are moving into more reporting on SharePoint especially as the new SharePoint V3 due out next year has better searching etc

Regards,

Tom Bizannes
SharePoint Consultant
http://www.macroview.com.au

Workflow tools for SharePoint

Will these still exist next year when SharePoint V3 is released with Office 2007?
The new inbuilt workflow will cover 80% to 90% of most business workflow needs along with Form Server. But these products provide efficiency right now which do server a purpose.
What is funny, is that one recent database job was all about tracking how long processes took so as to improve efficiency. It turned out to be workflow in disguise! So how many IT projects could be better served using workflow methodologies?

NetPoint Solutions
http://www.netpointsolutions.net/sites/NPS_English

Factiva:Search and workflow tools for Office 2003
http://www.factiva.com/index.asp

Captaris
http://www.captaris.com/

Skelta workflow .Net
http://www.skelta.com/

K2.Net
http://www.k2workflow.com

Nintex smartlibrary
http://www.nintex.com/Product-SmartLibrary.aspx

Smart workflow from LMR Solutions and DataLan FlowBuilder
http://www.lmrsolutions.com/

If you have used any of these, please provide feedback and the same about any other workflow products.

Tom Bizannes
SharePoint Consultant
http://www.macroview.com.au

Document and Message Management with SharePoint

Unless you are a tech head and memorize all those urls, it is difficult to use SharePoint to manage your documents if you have multiple document libraries and sites. That is why you need a SharePoint addon like WISDOM DMF to make SharePoint easier for end users!
If you want to save you messages, this is even more difficult as it requires quite a few manual steps that make it not practical for users unless they use a tool like WISDOM Message.

WISDOM DMF – Document and Message management addon for SharePoint that allows profiling from a central location plus lets the users stay in Microsoft Office and Windows. Also it automagically updates the tree view of sites and libraries based on the user’s permission!
These guys are the leaders in integrating Microsoft Office and SharePoint.
http://www.macroview.com.au/wsidomDMF.htm

WISDOM Message – a component of WISDOM DMF which works inside Microsoft Outlook making it easy to save your messages to SharePoint intact along with attachments.
http://www.macroview.com.au/wisdomMessage.htm

Meridio – Records management for SharePoint? How is their solution different to just disabling deleting of records after they are 1 month old and adding an audit trail to show what is happening to the document/s?
Need to find out more about what they mean by record management as this seems to be an important buzz word around corporate documentation.
http://www.meridio.com/

Knowledge Lake Connect – an evaluation showed it means if you have many sites that are constantly changing you have to keep changing the sites per workstation…. WISDOM DMF beats this product on all fronts for usability and administration.
http://www.knowledgelake.com/

Trinity Outlook Integration Tool – Yet to be analysed but their specifications fall down in some areas that WISDOM Message excels in.
http://www.tesl.com/TESL/Home.htm

Search Tools for SharePoint

Have you ever used the search in Windows SharePoint Services or SharePoint Portal Server?

Most people have no idea of the limitation and are frustrated when they cannot find what they want.

Why do we get frustrated with the Out of the box ( OOB) SharePoint search? Because it doesn't do boolean searching!

Why do we want boolean searching? Because we are used to it with Google!

There are now a few tools out there to enhance your searching and even provide extra features such as relevancy and searching reports to help administrators with classifications etc.

Coveo - reduces the need for portal server as this works with both Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal server.
http://www.coveo.com/

Ontolica - only works with SharePoint Portal server.
http://www.ontolica.com/

Entopia K-Bus for SharePoint - only works with SharePoint Portal server.
http://www.entopia.com

This space is going to get a lot more competitive with the new upcoming version of SharePoint V3. As it uses SQL Server 2005 behind the scenes we are going to see the relevancy functionality of the SQL Server 2005 search engine used in many more search products, particularly with SharePoint!

If you have had a good experience with these products are any others, please let us know.

Tom Bizannes
SharePoint Consultant
http://www.macroview.com.au

Reporting on SharePoint lists

Now here's an article about coding to link reporting services to sharepoint.

http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/teund/articles/ReportingSharePointLists.aspx

Can't wait to get this translated in vb.net and then start using it!

SharePoint Links

Saw that Joris Poelmans had updated his SharePoint Tools Galore V6 list.
http://jopx.blogspot.com/2006/03/sharepoint-tools-galore-v6.html

He is missing the WISDOM SharePoint add-ons which make SharePoint come alive for the end user!

Will update him on this, as these products have been around for quite a while.